How can a water softener cause so many illnesses in my family

[armabelle]

This is supposed to be a safe technology yet something in our water softener is causing a very grave problem in my families health. Over time we have realized that the water that goes through our ion-exchange softener is not suitable for pretty much anything let alone drinking. Let me explain the situation from the beginning. I will try to be to the point.

When we moved into our new home we were new to water softener technology and weren't told you could not drink the water. We usually drink bottled water but we may have used the tap water for the odd cup of tea because boiling bottled water seemed silly enough. So in the first few months we would all get severe heartburn and bloating and it took a while to realize that the water was the issue. When we started boiling bottled water instead for teas and soups things improved but over the next few months we still had milder heartburn issues and my children got rashes on their bodies and my wife and I also had rashes on our hands. Another strange happening was that we have a Vicks humidifier which we sometimes use in winter to restore some humidity to our home (our home gets dry from heating) and at night I would get similar symptoms from the vapor it releases into the air. Again time went by before we completely eliminated the water softener from our lives. By this I mean, we use a cloth and bottled water to wash ourselves. We also shower at the gym sometimes. We only wash our hands in bottled water now. We don't use the humidifier.

We are healthy.

The reason for this post is to try and understand, what on earth could bring about such issues on our families health. Is it the sodium in the soft water? Our water hardness at home is around 400ppm so that is a lot. I imagine that this means a lot of sodium ends up in the soft water because the harder the water, the more sodium is needed. But why would showering and using a humidifer make us sick?? How can this water be so toxic that the vapour makes you sick or washing in the water causes rashes and even causes mild heartburn and bloating

The only positive side to this is that we are healthy at home since removing this rubbish piece of technology from our home. It leaves me with a mind full of questions of which the most important is: how can something like this happen?

I would appreciate if someone more knowledgeable than I to give us any ideas as to why this might be happening.

[StevenRichards]

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